Posted by Mia in 
The Mio Technologies Ltd. company was one of the first who began to produce navigation devices with integrated GPS-module. So in many ways modern communicators owe their popularity to this manufacturer. Mainly the company focuses on the development of car GPS-navigators. That is why the communicator Mio Leap G50 aroused interest among omniscient users.
Design and Ergonomics
The device is concise and simple: strictly parallel lines of the shell, slightly beveled side edges, smoothed corners. You can’t find anything on the front panel such as buttons, joystick, finishing elements. However, Leap G50 can be called one of the most memorable Communicators. Its appeal lies precisely in the simplicity and almost Spartan minimalism.
Minimalism is in everything even in sizes. The device can hardly be described as thin (14.2 mm), but two of its other dimensions (98×58.5 mm) make it easy to take almost anywhere and in everything. The weight of the communicator is only 119 grams. It is difficult to imagine Leap G50 in some other colors except the classic combination of silver and black.
This is not an apparatus, which a 16-year-old girl or a young designer will be glad to receive as a gift on her birthday. Solid appearance hints at a serious audience.
Despite the form of “brick”, the Communicator is easy to handle thanks to soft plastic soft-touch. The upper part of the communicator is made from conventional lacquered metal, plastic, painted in a dark silver color. Well, the whole front panel is covered with glossy plastic. Most expensive modern shells have a clear translucent mirror panel, giving the device expensive sparkling appearance. Unfortunately, you can not say the same about Leap G50. So it does not look very expensive, although from a practical point of view, it is no worse than a homogeneous mirror cover.
The central control is sensor. Is this good or bad – decide yourself. Sensor buttons rarely spoil, look fashionable and modern, but it is difficult to use them in a frost, because you have to put off gloves. In addition, such control requires the existence of a mechanical lock button. All of these pluses and minuses inherent in any communicator with touch control, and Leap G50 is not an exception. But in this case, sensor control is realized in a specific way.
The milky-white touch panel does not differ notably: admission buttons and hanging on are on sides consisting of typical short lines vertical column in the center. The latter is clearly intended for scrolling documents and navigation in the menu.
The sensitivity of the sensor buttons is rebuilt not bad, but there are claims concerning the vertical scroll bar. The sensitivity could be higher in order to turn the pages of a long text easily. Unfortunately, the format of the sensor control eliminates the presence of all devices such as mechanical joystick, so the possibility of a horizontal scrollbar at the Leap G50 is missing.
To charge the device, exchanging data with a computer and connect to an external headset miniUSB port, which is closed with a plastic plug. All in one – it is certainly not bad, but headphones should like be connected to the Communicator without the use of adapters, i.e., directly to the 2,5 mm input.
In general Leap G50 is collected very qualitatively. It’s very nice and it’s very easy, comfortable and convenient to work with.
Filling and productivity
Filling of the communicator is not the most productive. It is based on Samsung S3C2443 processor with frequency of 400 MHz. The memory is not very large: 64 MB RAM and 128 MB ROM, from which the user can deal only with 89 and 29 Mb respectively, the rest, is occupied by the operating system and installed programs. Taking into consideration that Mio is a company specializing in GPS-navigator, it simply could not leave the user without the possibility of downloading maps in memory. Of course, it is possible to use the external microSD card for these purposes, but its own memory is likely to be faster. That is why the manufacturer of the device has equipped it with an additional flash-Disk of 1,7 Gb, which is enough to download any maps and navigation data.
Leap G50 is a classic communicator running Windows Mobile 6.1. For comparison, we used the results of testing Communicators Glofiish X610 (Samsung SCC32442 400 MHz, 64 MB RAM and 128 MB ROM, Windows Mobile 6.0) and Toshiba Portege G810 (CPU Qualcomm MSM7200 400 MHz, RAM 128 MB RAM and 256 MB ROM, a display QVGA, OS Windows Mobile 6.1).
Results were quite expected, though, it must be noted that the novelty is a little ahead from Glofiish X610.
Display
Display of G50 has resolution of 320×240 pixels. Unfortunately, the images are not of high quality. The colors look somewhat dimly, as if someone has unscrewed the adjustment of saturation at the minimum.
Display is hardly suited for viewing movies and photos, but it is quite comfortable to work with navigation software, office and telephone utilities. In this case, all the disadvantages of the screen are not noticeable.
Camera
The novelty is equipped with an extremely simple camera with a resolution of 2 MP. And there is neither flash nor autofocus. Unfortunately, the characteristics and quality of images are very low. The camera makes photos with a maximum resolution of 1600×1200 pixels, its features are traditional and do not require additional description.
Communications
Leap G50 is equipped with a Wi-Fi module 802.11 b/g, and Bluetooth 2.0 module with EDR. The only thing lacking on the board of the novelty is the support of networks of the third generation.
Some people think that the only disadvantage of G50 is the absence of radio module. Well, there is no FM-radio but the manufacturer decided to lower the price a bit.
GPS-navigation
Leap G50 is first of all a GPS-Communicator. The complete set of this device is equipped with a full set of accessories for installation of the device in the car. The navigation unit is based on a 20-channel SirfStar III – the best chip for mobile navigation devices. This is a classic program, accelerating the time of the “cold” start from a few minutes to a couple of seconds.
There is also mapping software, a program offered by Be-On-Road maps TeleAtlas.
Time of offline work
This novelty is equipped with a standard capacity battery of 1150 mA∙h. With 20 minutes of conversation a day with an address book and the Internet without charging it works 2.5 days! This is a very good result, because the vast majority of modern communicators require charging every day. Well, if you use a new MP3-player, you will have to charge the battery at least in 10 hours.
Software
Leap G50 can boast with the presence of its own Mio Mobile Shell, which is nothing more than a well-known interface to all Spb Mobile Shell. The shell can have a flexible configuration. But it is made somewhat roughly, and not very productive memory makes Leap G50 even slower.
Here is a set of additional applications of the company which are both useful and pleasing in appearance. A calculator with currency converter units and a black list with a lot of settings, the ability to set a password to access the phone book are also present. The program will automatically close the application when you click on “cross” and something else.
Conclusions
Nice design, excellent set and a long time of offline work, the presence of flash-disk with the capacity of 1.7 GB – all these are pluses which Mio Leap G50 has. The modest display; frankly outdated camera and the lack of FM-receiver on board are the main shortcomings of the novelty.
